


Spark a Prime

by Spoon888



Series: Two Cons And A Prime [3]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Double Penetration, Established Relationship, Just Call Him Oblivious Prime, M/M, Mech Preg, Multi, Oral, Post War AU, Sticky, Surprise pregnancy, Threesome - M/M/M, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-07 16:27:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20312524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spoon888/pseuds/Spoon888
Summary: Optimus is the one carrying the sparkling, yet is still, somehow, the last to know.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I said I was done with this series but I appear to have been kidding myself.

"_Optimus_!"

Megatron's gasping hiss was punctuated by one last thrust, the slam of his powerful hips against Optimus's aft scooting him up the berth and dislodging Starscream's seat across his face. The seeker fell forward and caught himself on his hands above Optimus, glaring over his wing at where Megatron was throwing his head back and overloading.

Optimus wrapped his legs around Megatron's waist and kept him there, gyrating his hips down, using Starscream's thighs -damp with lubricant and braced either side of his head- as leverage to push into every delectable twitch of Megatron's spike. He focused on it, optics fluttered shut, mouth falling open at the warm tickle of Megatron's overload splashing against his internal sensors, adding to the pool of warmth between his hips, sending his full spark _soaring_.

Megatron's thick thighs and taut belly continued to twitch and clench as he came down from his overload, smirking as he rolled his hips one last time to make Optimus shudder and deflate, legs falling from Megatron's waist and helm thumping to the berth.

"Couldn't have waited five more minutes?" Optimus heard Starscream complain above him, the berth dipping beneath him when Starscream climbed off his chest and, presumably, went to pester his overload out of Megatron instead.

Optimus didn't have the energy to watch, sweeping his tongue over wet lips still glistening with Starscream's lubricant, as the berth began to rock again to the telling rhythm of his mates' love making.

He heard Megatron grunt and managed to crack on optic open to catch a glimpse of the large mech on his knees, aft up, as Starscream pressed into him from behind him.

Optimus let his optic wink shut again, humming happily, frame buzzing and spark full to bursting.

Life was perfect.

* * *

Life was somehow less perfect the next morning.

Optimus woke to an aching, overheated frame, overworked cooling fans whirring at a worryingly high pitch. Bleary optics struggled to focus on the ceiling above him, and at some point in the night he'd thrown the sheets off and kicked them to the end of the berth. He was comfortably warm, and Starscream laying cuddled up against his right arm, blocking vents struggling to pump out heat, was not helping.

Uncharacteristically short on patience -and Optimus would put this down to whatever virus he'd obviously contracted- he elbowed Starscream off him.

The force of his shove rolled Starscream into the middle of the berth, his optics flicking on with a start. He immediately fixed his ire on the most likely culprit and dealt a ringing slap to Megatron's shoulder. Megatron too, woke in a bad mood.

"What is _wrong_ with you?!"

"Me? You _pushed_ me!"

"I was recharging, you deranged fool!"

Optimus left them to it, tuning out their endless bickering and retreating to the wash rack, leaving the stream on cold and ducking his head under the chilly solvent so he could drown out the arguing. He heard breaking glass and something slam, and felt his bad mood worsen when Starscream responded to whatever the noise had been with a grief-stricken howl.

"_My polish_!"

Optimus glared at the dark tiles of the shower, the glint of his cool blue optics staring back it him in their mirrored surface. The sooner he left for work, the better.

* * *

He didn't get any work done that cycle, instead choosing to sit at his desk and stare off into the middle distance with a cooling pad pressed to his chest, trying to massage the burning ache from his sternum and refusing to answer the comm or see to any visitors. The Santirinth Ambassador was literally immortal, so it wouldn't kill them to have to come back another day.

Somewhere around the midday refuelling break his secretary drone pinged him to say Starscream was here. Optimus could already picture how Starscream would sweep into his office like he owned it, sit on his desk, knock his To Do pile over his a wing, and spend the entire hour talking about himself - and realised he just did not have the patience to face him. He instead sent a message back to his secretary claiming he was out of the office at a meeting.

He felt guilty about it two hours later, when his bad mood finally began to recede.

"Busy day?" Starscream asked softly when Optimus came home and dropped facedown into their hideous orange couch.

Optimus said nothing, chest aching. He couldn't tell if it was the virus or his disappointment with his own feelings.

"You're stressed." Starscream cooed, his weight fell across Optimus's lower back as he straddled him and began rubbing his shoulders, leaning down so his soft mouth kissed the back of Optimus neck. "I'll make it better."

"I have a virus." He warned Starscream off, hollow voice muffled by the couch cushions.

"Can't be anything worse than the bugs Megatron's given me over the years." Starscream wasn't easily dissuaded, already coaxing him onto his back so he could kiss down his chest and get at his spike.

Starscream's clever mouth and lips and tongue drained him of tension, wet heat enveloping his spike and suckling until he was splayed and strutless, bad energy ebbing away with every swept of tongue and swallow. He overloaded quickly, and with markedly less intensity than he was used to, spilling into Starscream's mouth with a twitch and soft breath.

Starscream didn't comment on it, kissing the softening spike and tucking it back into it's housing.

"Better?"

Optimus nodded, but was unable to dismiss the thought that something was missing. His overload had taken the edge off his swirling emotions but it seemed to have unfurled something _else_ within him- a persistent want, an ache in the pit of his fuel tank than had nothing to do with a hunger for energon.

He sidled up against Starscream on the couch, let their legs brush, their arms, trailed fingers over wing edges and sat in the sort of sprawling, regal, open-legged slump bound to remind him of Megatron in one of his Moods, the sort that cried out for a spiking.

He made himself enough of a wanton pest until Starscream threw aside the news-file he'd been reading and pressed him back into the couch all over again.

Which was where Megatron found them an hour later when he finally arrived back at the apartment.

"Hm," he said, arching a brow at their positioning -Starscream passed out across Optimus's chest, hips cradled between his thighs. His cheek was squashed to Optimus's windshield, breath fogging the glass as he breathed.

"It seems I wore him out." Optimus admitted, stroking the limp wings on Starscream's back.

Megatron's cunning optics passed over him, considering him closely. "...I see."

Optimus thought nothing of at it the time, but with hindsight?

No one ever gave Megatron enough credit for how unnervingly perceptive he was.

* * *

Optimus was plagued by his virus for some time but it was simple enough to carry on as normal. He only suffered from inconsequential symptoms, little things like overheating and nausea and irritability, nothing that required bothering one of the few overworked medics their rebuilt society still had. Ratchet had far more pressing duties to attend to than to have to waste time getting to the bottom of the Prime's tank ache.

He purged, once or twice, often in the middle of the night or early in the morning, and almost always without the knowledge of his mates. The one occasion Megatron was roused enough to wander into the washroom to squint at him from the doorway, stroking his chin in thought, Optimus managed to play it off as something suspect he must have fuelled on.

He didn't want to be a bother and he didn't want anyone to worry. So rather than continue to risk waking his mates in the dead of the night to the sounds of gagging and heaving vents so they would come and stand behind him and stroke his back and fuss, next time he held his tank off long enough to lock the door and turn on the shower before bringing up his last fuelling.

The rush of solvent disguised the noise, and if any suspicious mates did come investigating? He was simply taking a shower.

Three hours before dawn.

Which was completely normal.

Neither of them brought him up on it though, after he'd cleaned himself up, tentatively refuelled and rejoined then in the berth, carefully lowering his weight down beside Megatron.

It simply wasn't polite to ask someone what they were doing in the washroom for an hour every night, Optimus reassured himself when a not-as-asleep-as-he'd-hoped Megatron rolled onto his side to throw an arm around him and draw him protectively closer, large hand splayed flat over the taut armour of his belly, below which his abused fuel tank ached and rolled.

The virus would pass on it's own.

He was far too busy to take time off work to get it checked anyhow.

* * *

"You can't get enough of our spikes, can you?" Megatron gloated beneath Optimus, but his optics were narrowed curiously, tracking up and down his writhing frame, lingering on his chest, lingering on his rolling hips.

Optimus ignored the taunt (mostly because it was true) and continued to ride Megatron's spike at a slow measured pace, valve fluttering and clenching when the blunt tip brushed his ceiling node and sent tingles through his struts. Behind him Starscream was stroking his spike to hardness as he watched, and Optimus obediently bent forwards, into his hands and knees above Megatron, so Starscream could press his spike into him alongside Megatron's.

He moaned, dropping his head to Megatron's chest as they stretched him beyond what he'd ever thought he'd be capable off.

"It's our bad influence." Starscream propped his narrow chin on his shoulder to smirk, inching himself ever deeper, hot breath puffing over Optimus's audials.

Starscream slipped at hand about Optimus's waist as he started to frag him, palm flat to his abdomen and stroking in circles. Optimus was panting and wailing, optics clenched shut, so he missed the look his mates shared over his shoulder, and the distracted slide of Starscream's thumb over the small swell in his armour.

* * *

Optimus placed his hands on his hips and tilted them forwards so he could better look down his frame, and more specifically, his waistline.

Bloating. A mistake in his last transformation sequence? His internals not sitting as they should? Or was this another sign of the virus?

He had rather naively thought the illness had passed. He was no longer purging or nauseous, but this was an abnormal development. He stroked a hand over the bump. It was warm and the armour tender. It could be his fuel tanks aching for a refill. He had been consuming much energon more lately.

He hadn't even noticed the expansion in his usually flat, tight waistline until that afternoon, when he'd walked into a high priority intelligence meeting with Jazz, the sort that was held in dark rooms in undisclosed locations where all evidence of it even taking place had to be destroyed afterwards, only for the intelligence officer to waste a good five minutes of the meeting staring at him in stifling silence, optics hidden behind a visor that kept his thoughts too well guarded for Optimus's liking.

Optimus looked himself up and down. "Is there a problem?"

"...No." It took Jazz -fast talking, clever Jazz- a long moment to respond, apparently at a loss for words. "There's just... more of you than I expected to see."

Optimus dropped a hand to his waist. Oh.

Since it was only a cosmetic side-affect and Optimus couldn't care less about his appearance, beyond Starscream's nitpicking ("it's not nitpicking I just want you to take pride in your appearance!"), he elected to ignore it. It showed no sign of being life threatening, and his mates hadn't commented on it, so what did it matter?

It would be something to look into once his schedule finally let up.

* * *

He was dozing at his desk when his personal comm pinged. No one but Megatron and Starscream used it these days, so he answered with a vague grunt, reassured in the knowledge that they knew him well enough to differentiate between the vaguest of noises.

So he jumped, effectively roused out of his doze, when Ratchet's impatient snarl came over the speakers.

"_You need to come in and see me_."

"Ratchet?"

"_Who else_?" Ratchet was grouchier than usual. "_I've cleared a spot for you this afternoon."_

Optimus scrambled for his schedule, "I have a summit to attend on inter-planetary transport routes this afternoon," he sighed, feeling bored just saying it. He'd honestly much rather see his old friend instead, whatever the reason for his grumpiness, but duties were duties. "Perhaps when my schedule-"

"_Damn your schedule, you're coming in_!" Ratchet snapped. _"I just heard from **Jazz** of all mechs-!"_

Oh wonderful. The virus.

"It's nothing to concern yourself with." Optimus interrupted quickly, wanting to shut the rumours of him being unwell down before they reached his mates, or worse, his suspiciously power hungry colleges. "I have everything under control. Jazz has always been prone to gossip."

Which wasn't true and somewhat unfair, but Ratchet had managed to fluster him, and he really did have a summit to get to. "I'll have my secretary programme you in sometime next month. Things should be quieter by then."

"_You- what do you- **next month**_?!"

"Another time, Ratchet." Optimus bid him farewell and hung up before the medic could get into one of his rants.

* * *

He was so exhausted most days that it shouldn't have been a surprise when he fell asleep at his desk.

What was a surprise, was when he was woken by someone picking him up. Fight or flight instinct triggered, he brought his knee up and managed to slam the reinforced plating directly into Megatron's nasal ridge.

He was dropped back into his seat and had to catch himself against the desk before the chair toppled over and sent him sprawling to the floor. Megatron was bent double in front of him, hands to his face, cursing.

"What are you doing?!" Optimus hissed, hastily rearranging all the datapads he'd been drooling on.

Megatron made a ferocious noise of frustration and lifted his head, hastily wiping away the trickle of energon escaping the split in the bridge of his nose. "I was going to carry you to the berth!" He snarled, clearly regretting it now.

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want to wake you!" Megatron thundered, bellowing vocaliser enough to be heard cities away. "Clearly that was a mistake."

Despite proclaiming it as such, Megatron re-approached and bent as if he wanted to give it another shot. Optimus twisted in his chair to try and scoot away, not in any mood to be carried around for... whatever ridiculous reason Megatron wanted to carry him around for.

"You'll _hurt_ yourself!" Starscream sang from his office doorway where he had apparently been watching the entire debacle with inappropriate glee.

Optimus thought he was referring to the likelihood of Megatron getting kneed in the face a second time, but when Megatron snarled back that, "I can lift him just fine, thank you!" He realised with a bitter punch to the chest, that it was about his _weight_.

"Ex_cuse_. Me?" His began dangerously, bracing a fist on his desk and looking between the pair of them. He was, at his core, a sensitive mech, but that sensitively easily transmuted into the very un-primely temptation to punch those who disturbed his emotional balance directly in the throat.

Megatron, of all mechs, should have known that best.

"Ignore him," Megatron grunted, which wasn't much of an apology, and before Optimus could do anything more to stop him, bent and swept him up. Optimus found himself bridal style in Megatron's strong but shaking arms.

He arched an unimpressed brow at Megatron's tense face as the mech straightened up with great difficulty. Optimus's embarrassment was at least soothed by Megatron's struggle. He was, obviously, too heavy.

"Don't you _dare_ drop him." Starscream warned, unnervingly serious. "You drop him and I'll never forgive you."

"It's quite alright, Starscream." Optimus reassured him, looping an arm around Megatron's neck to make himself comfortable and looking into his valiant carrier's twitching face smugly. "He has me."

It must have been by sheer force of will that Megatron managed to put one pede in front of the other to carrying him through the halls of their apartment back to the berth room. Optimus was dumped to the berth with marginally more care than a sack of spare parts and Megatron collapsed to the padding at his side.

"You're too old to be doing that." Starscream complained, and came to Megatron's side with a damp piece of cloth to dab at the armour split on his nose. "This had better not leave an imperfection."

Megatron scowled at him cross-eyed.

"I apologise." Optimus supposed he should show some remorse for kneeing him in the face. "I'm not sure what came over me."

He was supposedly used to sharing his sleeping space with two other mecha. There was no reason for him to have responded so violently to being touched.

"It's natural." Starscream clearly didn't see it that way, and Megatron -the injured party in this- grunted his agreement. "Nothing wrong with you being on your guard these days."

Optimus wasn't sure what to make of such a comment. It was peace time, and for the first time in his life he was in a safe, secure, familial environment. What did he have to be on his guard about, asides from Megatron rolling on top of him in the night?

* * *

"Are you going to release a statement?" Prowl passed him in the hallway between meetings.

"Hmm?" Optimus stopped, feeling somewhat inconvenienced by the questioning. Prowl was prone to catching mechs out in the hallways and interrogating them when they were least prepared for it. Optimus wasn't sure if it was an unintentional Prowl-thing, or something he chose to do deliberately.

"A statement." Prowl repeated, harsh gaze tracking up and down his frame. "About your condition."

Optimus made a noise beneath the dignity of a Prime and looked skywards. "I am not _sick_, Prowl."

Prowl blinked slowly. "I was referring to the recent developments regarding your _personal_ life."

His optics did that irritating track up and down his frame again.

"My conjunx's?" Optimus frowned. "I have already revealed all that I am willing to on that matter to the media. My personal relationships will remain personal. I was under the impression the fuss had died down."

"It had." Prowl hummed. "But recent developments as they are-"

"Recent developments?"

"You're right." Prowl abruptly changed track, turning to continue on his way. "Your business is your business."

Optimus sighed. Clearly there was some sort of rumour making the rounds again. He would have to have an intern search through the less reputable media outlets to see what the story of the week was regarding his personal life and the two unlikely mates the press just couldn't seem to get enough of.

* * *

Megatron was fond of throwing his weight around, laying himself over his mates and pressing them flat into the berth padding with his weightier armour and denser engine. Starscream, in particular, enjoyed the weight of him, and was always at his most vocal when held down and 'trapped'.

Optimus had also become rather fond of that treatment, of forgoing control and enjoying the thrill of Megatron throwing him around, pushing him into positions, pinning his hands down and fragging him till he drooled. These past few months he'd grown increasingly more drawn to being spiked than he had to using his own.

So he was disappointed when all the signals he was giving, for Megatron to be rough, to push him around, to grapple with him and take them both back to that nostalgic time when their own repressed feelings had them wanting to rip one another's heads off, were unobserved, and he earned nothing in return.

"Hold me down." He told Megatron, arching to brush their chests together and squirming beneath him. There was air between their frames and there shouldn't have been. Megatron was suspended above him, not laid out across him, and Optimus wanted that claustrophobic heat, wanted his vents to stutter and struggle, wanted the crushing weight and the asphyxia that only intensified his overloads.  
  
"I am." Megatron breathed, and pressed down on Optimus's wrists.

It wasn't enough. Optimus clenched down on the spike moving at an infuriatingly languid pace in and out of his valve.

"Megatron," he sighed, and it wasn't out of pleasure. "This isn't doing much for me."

Megatron paused above him, hips drawn back with only the tip of his spike still inside him. "...Do you want to stop?"

"No." He didn't. That was the problem.

"Is it Starscream?" Megatron muttered. The seeker was away that evening, with his trine, and the berth always felt miserably empty without him. But interfacing usually filled that void. "We can call him?"

"No, it's late there. Perhaps," Optimus pushed against the palms on his wrists and Megatron let up, pulling out of his valve and sitting back on his knees. Optimus had the room to roll over, and Megatron immediately grabbed his hips and waist, as though to support them.

To Optimus's continued confusion he took a pillow from the head of the berth and shoved it between the padding and Optimus's waist, supporting and elevating his hips. "Why do I-?"

Megatron was pressing into him from behind before he could ask about the pillow, and the new angle had him sinking further. Callipers clenched in surprise and then spiralled open to allow access to deepest of his internals. Optimus moaned and slumped when the pace picked up fast, Megatron's hips rubbing paint transfers onto his upturned aft.

He overloaded quickly, forgetting what had confused him in the first place.

* * *

He slept in the next morning. Not out of choice, but because Megatron leaned over his prone frame and manually reset his chrono, disconnecting his commlink for good measure. He was roused by light peaking through the slits in the window shutters, but Megatron urged him back down.

"Your meeting was canceled." He spooned Optimus from behind, chest flush to his back, arms loose around his middle.

"You're lying." Optimus could tell, but he felt no real pressure to push him away and rise anyway, so let his mate continue to purr and nuzzle his neck, let him draw circles over his chest and down his abdomen.

A palm lingered over the ever present bump in his armour. Optimus dropped his own hand over Megatron's, wondering what he thought of the not so hidden disfigurement. It was noticeable now. Even to those who saw him every day.

"Megatron?" He began, turning into his back.

But the slide of the balcony doors in the room next to them stopped him.

"Have you seen this?!" Starscream's disembodied voice came next, fresh back from Vos and indignant and loud in a way he only ever was when the media had run a piece on him. And hadn't been kind. "Megatron? You'd better not still be recharging, you lazy piece of- oh, Optimus!"

Starscream appeared in the door and brightened his scowling face with a smile, tucking the news-file he'd been brandishing behind his back. It seemed he had much more patience for Optimus sleeping in than he did Megatron.

"Hello Starscream." He smiled tiredly, "How were your trine?"

Starscream's made some noncommittal gesture. "They're still alive. _Megatron_," he made some urgent gesture with his head. "You need to see this."

Megatron began to rise. At his grave expression Optimus made to follow. "Is everything alright?"

"I'm sure it's nothing." Megatron began, hand clapped to his shoulder, urging him back down.

"Go back to recharge." Starscream said in the same pacifying tone. "It's nothing you need to worry about. We don't want you feeling stressed."

This was getting weird. Optimus rose anyway, instinctively lowering a hand to his lower chassis. Something within his tanks pulsed, and for a brief moment he feared the nausea from his virus had returned, but it passed quickly.

He cleared his vocaliser. "I'm perfectly capable of handling stress."

Starscream flashed Megatron an annoyed look as if Optimus's contrariness was somehow his fault.

"There's a headline." Starscream hissed at Megatron through gritted teeth, then tilted his head in Optimus's direction.

Ah, Optimus understood. Someone had written something unsavoury about him. He shook his head, extending a hand for Starscream to hand the news-file over. "I'm sure I've read worse."

Starscream kept it behind his back. "That's not the point. They're invading our privacy."

"It's about you?"

"Only in passing." Starscream muttered, but at a Optimus's firm insistence, sighed in defeat and handed it over. 

Optimus braced himself, but he was not prepared. _Nothing_ could have prepared him.

**Part-Time Prime? Colleges Concerned Prime's Sparkling Will Interfere In Planetary Reform.**

Was this the wrong article? Optimus immediately thought of Rodimus, and how completely unsurprised he would be to hear the younger Prime had gotten himself sparked up.

Except the article displayed a image capture of him. He appeared to be stepping out of the senate building and onto a skybridge. The angle was unflattering, and the quality fuzzy, obviously taken from the ground and then zoomed in. There was a bright red circle highlighting his waistline, which was somewhat less trim than it had been.

His optics flicked back to the headline.

-**Prime's Sparkling**-

"But I'm not... sparked?" Optimus scrunched up his features.

Neither of his mate's answered. He looked up, and they were staring at him.

"_What_?"

"Are you sure?" Starscream had raised both brows and widened his optics. They flicked down, glanced at his lower chassis and then back up at his face. Then down again.

"I'm-" Optimus reset his vocaliser, looking to Megatron for help, but the mech was just looking at him helplessly, disbelievingly, like _Optimus_ was the making everything confusing. "-You think I'm sparked?!"

"We don't 'think', we _know_. We both do." Starscream's optics got bigger. "For months. We thought-" The two Decepticon's shared a glance.

"We were wondering why you hadn't mentioned it actually." Megatron finally spoke, sounding far away, lost in his own head connecting the dots, only just realising, as Starscream was, that Optimus had somehow missed every hint his frame had been telling him - telling everyone- that it was carrying.

"I didn't know I- I'm," Optimus's spark started pulsing faster. He dropped his hands to his waist, and felt that rolling sensation again. A kick. It was _kicking_. The _sparkling_\- _his_ sparkling was kicking. _Sparkling_!

"Thought it was some weird Autobot thing." Starscream was still talking, looking at Megatron who was nodding along vacantly, neither of _them_ panicking because they'd known for months. "And we didn't want to be rude bringing it up. You were in such a bad mood and kept locking yourself away to throw up-"

"I thought I was sick!" Optimus exclaimed, slowly lowering himself to the berth, no longer trusting his own legs.

"If you thought you were sick, why didn't you go to a medic?" Megatron sounded annoyed. "They would have happily told you you were sparked."

"I was busy!" Optimus argued, "and the 'symptoms' went away! I just..."

"_Typical_ Autobot. Ignore a problem and hope it goes away." Starscream drawled, shaking his head.

"You haven't seen a medic at all?" Megatron was too concerned to waste time gloating and shaming him.

"No!" Optimus snapped, then thought of _Ratchet_ calling him, having heard from _Jazz_ and- and _Prowl_! Had they all known?! Had everyone known but him?

"I am stupid?" He asked, suddenly struck with the realisation.

"Yes." Starscream said sweetly, and took a seat next to him on the berth, smiling. "But we love you anyway."

"I should go to the medic." Optimus murmured, rubbing his chassis in concern. Poor little thing, Primus knew how it had been neglected these past few months without him even realising.

"Do you want Megatron to carry you again?" Starscream offered teasingly.

Megatron made an unhappy noise, but didn't refuse, instead threading his fingers together and stretching out his arms, flexing them.

"Just help me up." Optimus reached out so they could pull him to his feet. The knowledge of his own obliviousness weighing him down just as much as the growing sparkling protoform inside him. "Ratchet's going to have his hands full with me, we don't need him having to worry about reattaching Megatron's arms too."

"You're not that heavy." Starscream smiled, leaning into his side.

"He is." Megatron huffed, throwing an arm over his shoulders.

Starscream reached around and smacked Megatron for Optimus.

Such doting sires, both of them. It was all Optimus needed to the soothe the flutter of the his panicking spark.

He'd be alright. They both would.


	2. Chapter 2 : Ratchet's Office

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since so many of you asked for a bonus chapter with Ratchet's reaction to this disaster, how could I resist writing it?

Of the three of them, only Megatron was brave enough to call Ratchet and explain the situation. He took it out in the hall, walking as far from the apartment as he could get so Optimus wouldn't hear his hissing retorts as Ratchet, assumedly, blew a gasket. Optimus was thankful. He really didn't want to know what Ratchet had said. With any luck, the medic would have calmed down by the time they reached the medcentre.

Asides from the hissed argument, the call was quick. Ratchet was able to clear a space for him for an 'emergency' appointment. Optimus thought that was a little drastic, as he was perfectly functional and with the medic shortage the planet was still suffering there had to be mecha more in need of 'emergency' medical attention than he was. Surely he could wait a day or two-

"I don't care how heavy you are. I will throw you over my shoulder and carry you there!" Megatron threatened when he tried to express his concerns.

"But Megatron, the media drones!" Optimus protested, thinking of the headlines.

Five minutes and one short argument later, they were on their way.

"Don't know what _you're_ so worried about." Starscream clung to his arm as they entered the clean white medcentre. "He's not going to hurt _you_."

"Debatable." Optimus murmured, summoning his courage as they approached where the signs indicated Ratchet's office was.

Ratchet was waiting for them outside his door, arms folded, pedes tapping, head bowed, the gleam of his blue optics were piercing. Megatron began to lag behind at the sight of him. Optimus didn't blame him.

Optimus cleared his vocaliser-

Ratchet extended a finger from the hand resting on his folded arm, pointing to the open office. His expression was unchanging. "In."

Optimus shut his mouth and followed his orders. Megatron and Starscream shuffled in quickly after him, neither of them wanting to be the last in the room as Ratchet followed close behind.

Ratchet's office reminded Optimus a great deal of the medbay on the _Ark_ from so long ago; organised chaos. To the untrained eye it looked like tools had been left haphazardly, put wherever there was a space. But there was a system, and it worked well for the medic.

Optimus took a seat on the examination berth set out along the side of the room, opposite a large desk. On the desk there was a mess of files stacked higher than Ratchet would have been able to see over, and a framed image; of Rodimus and Drift.

"What are you smiling about?" Ratchet snapped when he caught him looking.

Optimus quickly wiped the expression away and swung his legs up onto the examination berth, laying back. Megatron and Starscream ignored the chairs set out next to Ratchet's desk -too close to the medic himself for their peace of mind- and instead wedged themselves into the small gap between the wall and Optimus's examination berth, looking as awkward as two scowling Decepticons possibly could in Ratchet's bright, welcoming office.

"Is he alright?" Megatron demanded before Ratchet had even picked up a scanner.

Ratchet slowly put his hands on his hips and stared at him. "I haven't _done_ anything yet. Morons."

He scoffed and sat himself down on a stool with wheels, scooting himself across the office to Optimus's side. "Don't count on your sparkling being an academic." He muttered, casting a hateful glance at Megatron.

Megatron opened his mouth, but Starscream slapped his chest with a hiss of, "Shut up. If he throws something at you it might hit _me_."

Megatron slumped against the wall and folded his arms crossly.

"Now." Ratchet breathed, taking in a deep breath. "Which of those idiots is the sire?"

"We both are!" Starscream ignored his own advice about shutting up and yelled across the room.

Ratchet rolled his optics. "Yes, _sure_, and you'll both be _great_ sire's. But I'm asking _literally_."

"Ratchet," Optimus began, wincing at the annoyed spark in Starscream's optics. "I honestly can't say which of them it was."

"Fine." Ratchet shrugged. "Then I'll have to take _samples_ from them both."

He said it with a level of menace.

It did the trick. Starscream's optics flashed, and he performed a full one hundred and eighty degree turn in attitude when he jabbed a condemning digit in Megatron's direction. "Him. He did it."

Megatron straightened with an indignant noise. "What happened to 'we're _both_ sires'?"

Starscream held up his arms helplessly, "I'm talking statistically. You're always up in his-"

"Megatron." Optimus sighed, not wanting this to turn into an argument. "I think Starscream's right. The night before I began feeling unwell, you-"

"Alright, we don't need a recap!" Ratchet interrupted quickly, kicking against the floor and wheeling himself across the office to his desk. He rifled around in a drawer and removed a sample pot which he tossed towards Megatron. Megatron caught it.

"Go." Ratchet pointed to the door. "Fill that up."

"Now?" Megatron's optics went pale. "_Here_?"

"_No_ not in _here_." Ratchet snarled. "Down the hall."

"You can't expect me to-"

"Primus, why do you have to make such a fuss about everything!" Starscream snatched the sample pot out of his hand and took his wrist, yanking him towards the door. "It'll be fine. I'll help you."

Megatron looked decidedly less reluctant.

"Starscream." Ratchet called before they left. "I need that sample _un-contaminated_."

Starscream rolled his optics, but they weren't far enough down the hall that Optimus and Ratchet didn't hear him say 'guess you're gonna have to settle for a hand-job'. Ratchet's frown deepened. Optimus hid behind his hand.

"I apologise-"

"It's fine." Ratchet waved a hand, voice decidedly softer in the Decepticons' absence. He wheeled back up to Optimus's side. "I'm used to embarrassing mates."

Optimus's gazed flicked towards the desk, to the picture of Drift and Rodimus; the pair of them bright and happy and looking utterly foolish. For a renowned grump, Ratchet had a lot of patience for _their_ antics.

"What's not fine however, is _you_ hanging up on me!" Ratchet thrust a wrench at him. "And ignoring me when I tell you to come in!"

"Yes Ratchet." Optimus wanted to sink into the berth and disappear, feeling like a reprimanded child.

"Thinking you were 'sick'." Ratchet continued, half-muttering to himself. He moved to the end of the examination berth, set up stirrups, and began lifting Optimus's legs into them. "And you _still_ didn't come in. This is what happens when you're unsupervised!"

"I didn't want to worry anyone."

"And we're all nice and _calm_ now, aren't we?" Ratchet barked. "Open!"

Optimus let his modesty panels flick open before Ratchet could shout again. He braced himself for the clinical touch, focusing on a spot on the ceiling when he felt the speculum and heard the click of a light switching on. He watched down his own body as Ratchet crouched.

The light clicked off, and the speculum was removed. Optimus felt his frame relax an iota.

"What were the symptoms of your '_sickness_'?" Ratchet asked sarcastically.

"Irritability." Optimus admitted to the ceiling. "Nausea. I was fuelling more."

"Good. Normal." Ratchet murmured, typing something down into a datapad. "How often have you been interfacing?"

Optimus felt his face warm with childish embarrassment. Ratchet was a medic and it shouldn't have been an awkward question to answer, and of course he was sleeping with Megatron and Starscream. They were living together. They'd gotten him _sparked_.

But there was something about openly admitting to Ratchet that he was frequently 'facing their enemies of four million years that made him want the white polished floor to rise and swallow him up.

"The usual amount."

He could almost _hear_ Ratchet's brows lift. "And how much is a _usual amount_, Prime?"

"_A few times a cycle_." Optimus murmured out of the corner of his mouth.

Ratchet hummed and typed something again. He then swivelled his stool over to be level with Optimus's chassis. "Let me know if there's any discomfort." He said, before laying his hands on Optimus's lower chassis and pressing gently.

Optimus felt a shudder, then a pulse of sensation. "They're kicking."

Rwtchet nodded, then moved his hands. Another pulse. "Well, they seem healthy."

"Seem?"

"Well, since you've _missed_ almost all of the checkups you _would_ have had, there are a lot of tests to do."

"Oh." Optimus murmured.

"I'm going to take a sample of your fuel, see if there are any deficiencies. Take a full spark scan. Check your engines. Make sure the carrying isn't taxing your systems."

"Ah."

"And you'll need to move onto an approved diet." Ratchet reached into his subspace and dumped a datafile on Optimus's chest. "You won't be able to transform fully either." Ratchet poked his swollen chassis. "So you're going to have to perform half-transformations every cycle to stop yourself getting stiff."

That was a lot to take in.

He was saved from the extended list when Starscream came swanning back into the office, the sample pot (filled) in hand. "I'd say that's a record." He smirked, wriggling it.

"Where's Megatron?" Optimus craned his neck to see around the doorway.

"Picking himself off the floor." Starscream brushed Optimus's arm as he passed. His armour felt warm.

Megatron came stumbling back in at that point, a dazed, enamoured expression on his face, clearly quite pleased with whatever Starscream had been doing to him in the other room. And they really hadn't been long. Optimus felt warm thinking about it.

"Thank _you_," Ratchet took the sample pot with pinched digits, then held it up to the light, judging it. "Not bad... for your age."

Megatron's expression soured.

"So when's it due?" Starscream sat himself on the edge of Optimus's examination berth, crossing one leg atop the other.

Ratchet consulted his scan read outs.

"Ha!" He laughed. But it wasn't a good laugh. It was an hysterical '_I can't believe this_' laugh. Optimus's spark skipped a beat. "Next _month_." Ratchet waved the scanner. "Have fun getting your slag together you three."

"A month!" Megatron yelled.

"What do you mean _a month_!" Starscream squawked. "The symptoms didn't start until two months ago? How can he already be so far along?!"

"The start of symptoms don't necessarily mean the start of a gestation!" Ratchet slapped down his scanner. "It's a small sparkling because Megatron's not the sire, _you're_ the sire," he jabbed a digit between Starscream's optics.

"Just because it's small doesn't-" Starscream began, before Ratchet lifted the scanner, turned it around, and shoved the three dimensional image in Starscream's face.

"Oh." Starscream's optics blew as wide as spotlights.

Optimus sat up, and there on the scan was a tiny frame, curled up inside him. Even at that size, the thrusters and the wing nubs were clearly identifiable. A little seeker. His sparkling was a _seeker_.

"Just what we all need." Ratchet muttered, leaving them all speechless. "A mini-Starscream. _Hooray_!" 


End file.
